


braiding

by sinagtala (strikinglight)



Series: acts of intimacy [2]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Hair Brushing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-02
Updated: 2017-09-02
Packaged: 2018-12-23 00:08:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11977971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strikinglight/pseuds/sinagtala
Summary: Frederick kisses in short distances, and it’s only later that she realizes how far they’ve come—how long her hair has grown, how the hours accumulate.





	braiding

**Author's Note:**

> Requested by Winny. Prompt: one playing with the other's hair.

Late in the evening, when the torches are low and the soldiers are dozing, stealing what pockets of rest they can in the dark hours, Robin comes to him.

They’ve always agreed, though not in so many words, not to touch where the others can see. Never mind that Sumia’s eyes follow them dreamily as they saddle up their horses for the day’s ride, that Lissa’s smiles have taken on a gleam like a knife’s edge— _C’mon now, there’s no need to be so modest._ It’s not so much that it isn’t proper as simply that it isn’t necessary, this business of being seen and known and talked about; they don’t need it any more than they need to be beside one another every moment, every second.

But when he takes up her comb in their tent and gestures for her to sit before him, she lets him, even if she doesn’t need to be taken care of this way. Robin is not vain, doesn’t imagine that she would be even in more forgiving times, the lengths of cord she uses to tie her back more than enough for her. She has always told herself she doesn’t need Frederick either, that she values him too much to whittle him down to a necessity, that he’s always been her freest choice. More than anything, Frederick deserves to be chosen, to be wanted, and what she wants is—

Robin knows that what she wants is nothing Frederick won’t give. Frederick, of all people, is the sort who lives to grant wishes—she knows, how she knows. But asking for it is another matter, even so. Robin thinks she is no shrinking violet; she sends men to fight and die with fever in her voice and steel in her spine, wears her magic like armor hot and bright, but there are things she still has not dared to name, things that, in her heart of hearts, she still refuses to claim as her own.

She refuses to think about when Frederick became one of those things. She doesn’t know when, in this moment or at all, cannot unravel the riddle of how anyone could come to love a girl who barely knows who she is. The only solution she can offer now is a long, slow exhale, as if he is coaxing the air from her lungs, and then Frederick is leaning forward, and she can feel his answering breath: _Milady, how long your hair has grown._

The strokes, too, grow long; his fingers climb, and the motion trails upward along his wrist and arm and shoulder, until his body rocks in its own steady, even cadence, a rhythm that doesn’t stop even after the last of the tangles comes undone and the comb rests forgotten on the pallet at his side. All they have is the quiet, burning steadily like a candle as Robin bows her head beneath Frederick’s hands, as he parts her hair with his fingertips and lets his touch ghost over the plane of warm skin beneath.

 _Has it really been so long?_ she asks. Frederick smiles, leans closer still until she can feel the shape of it press against her nape, the knob of bone at the crest of her spine, the soft spot to one side of her throat where her heart beats.

Frederick kisses in short distances, and it’s only later that she realizes how far they’ve come—how long her hair has grown, how the hours accumulate.


End file.
